Re: zip drive problems...

["Petr \[Dingo\] Dvorak" <dingo@texoma.net>]

On Tue, 31 Jul 2001, Phillip Deackes wrote:

PD> Sometimes the partition you need to access is /dev/sda1 rather than
PD> /dev/sda4. Don't know why, but I have several zip disks, some where the
PD> uabale partition is /dev/sda1 and others where it is /dev/sda4. Maybe it
PD> has something to do with whether you formatted the zipdisks using Linux or
PD> Windows?

factory zip disks come out with extended partition except primary, the reason
for this is probably the fact that iomega people didn't wanted the zip to force
it self to be second primary partition, which is not much of a problem on linux
since it uses root tree filesystem.

But in windows and other dos-like filesystems this can be a big problem, for
example, let's say that you have 20gb drive, split in 2 partitions that
normally show as C and D, on primary ide as a master, and ide zip drive as
secondary slave.

if you have old machine that doesn't have bios support for ide zip drives, you
will be fine since you have to use windows or dos driver to get the machine to
see the zip drive.

now 2 things can happend if you have machine that has bios which supports zip
drives:

1. you leave the zip disk with primary partition in the drive over reboot, your
   second hard drive partition D will be pushed to E and the zip drive will
   become D. at this point any windows program that has been installed on your
   extended hdd partition will quit working because the drive letters changed.

2. you leave zip disk with extended partition in the drive over reboot,
   because of the fact that the zip drive is plugged in as secondary slave, its
   extended partition will be the last partition in drive list, thus not
   pushing any other drive letters around.


here is a table how dos/bios normally sorts the partitions:

	1st ide master primary 
	1st ide slave  primary
	2nd ide master primary
	2nd ide slave  primary
	1st ide master 1st extended 
	.
	1st ide master Xth extended
	1st ide slave  1st extended
	.
	1st ide slave  Xth extended
	2nd ide master 1st extended
	.
	2nd ide master Xth extended
	2nd ide slave  1st extended
	.
	2nd ide slave  Xth extended


so the actual problem isn't which system had formatted the disk, but how the
disk it self has been partitioned.

                                                Dingo.


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    Petr [Dingo] Dvorak                                 dingo@pdragon.org
    Coder - Purple Dragon MUD                       pdragon.org port 3333
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